The church of Illumin had been a great start for Odin's conquest, which he simply took to be a time where he would do good things to make more money while he could. He wasn't doing anything out of kindness, and rather it had mostly just been helping with things that were annoying. Someone was ill and he was to administer medicine? It wasn't like Odin, with his skeleton body, could even contract diseases anymore, so he was the perfect candidate for the job. As for his treatment at the hands of Father Jerad, well that could only be described in a lengthy and strongly worded letter that Odin had plans to send to the church in Crocus. Of course, he didn't expect anything to come of writing to the cardinals. After all, he was a Lich, and the priests had sworn an oath to eradicate all evil, which for some reason included any Liches and demons that existed, with no room for even the possibility of a nice guy being among them. Then again, Odin was far from nice, nor had he ever cared for anyone beyond a select few that were part of his 'inner circle'. As far as the church was concerned, Father Jerad was doing his job proud by screaming at Odin like a frightened pre-pubescent and cursing his name to some plan of hell. Odin had to admit, the man's outburst had at least been more colourful than that of the generic populace, who simply stuck to words like 'monster' and 'abomination', words that Odin had become very accustomed to, and even welcomed. After all, fearing him meant they stayed out of his way, also it was quite fun being the only one of his kind for centuries. Everyone assumed he was just a scary story that children were told to frighten them into being nice, the whole 'do good or a Lich will steal your soul', so breaking that façade brought the male such joy.

But he wasn't just wandering through the streets Magnolia to spook the locals, not at all. Once again, Odin had taken a job, this time from a cake shop, aptly called 'Olly's Cake Shop'. It was a quaint little place, but all Odin was to do today would be deliver packages, presumably cakes of some description, to whoever had ordered them. He was excited about this request over his previous one for two main reasons: The first was simply that he much preferred the smell of cakes to that of the dying and the sick. Neither bothered him too much, but if he had to choose one over the other, it would be an easy win for cakes. The other reason was much more mischievous to be honest, and played on Odin's thoughts on his walk over to the shop. This quest would put him in a much more social environment, talking and meeting people, more importantly people who wouldn't be able to pass it off as death or just a hallucination.

514

In a very similar vein to what happened, at least originally, with Father Jerad, the owner of the shop Olly paid no attention to Odin as he entered, too busy focussing on other treats that he had to get finished before some big event coming up. Even the echoing of the Lich's hollow voice didn't cause him to turn his head, instead getting one of his assistants: a younger, terrified looking child, to serve Odin and give him what he needed. Upon hearing that Odin was here for the delivery Olly, still without looking up from what he was doing, rejoiced that his salvation had finally come to help.

"Ah, finally someone's here to help. Augustus, give him the parcels, as many as he can carry, and the note with the addresses. Don't drop them or you won't get paid, I have a reputation to uphold after all. If it takes multiple journeys that's fine, just get them done."

Short, sweet and to the point without any extras, this man must've been great fun at the parties his cakes would regularly attend, but Odin liked him. It meant less time the dark mage had to spend in the shop, and less time people had to see a monster of darkness spending his time in a shop that children would frequent. It was possible that Odin's existence was dropping the reviews of the shop, wasn't racism great fun when on the receiving end.

Ignoring the frightened customers and even more terrified shop workers, all except Olly, who still hadn't noticed, Odin took half of the packages and the note detailing their locations, and set off to find the people who had ordered cakes. There were around five in Odin's hand, and five left in the shop when he departed, and his journey was clearly going to take him all around Magnolia. Luckily, Odin had planned for the journey when he left the cake shop. The deliveries were nicely split, and Odin had taken them to ensure that he would hit one half of Magnolia in the first run, and then the other half with his second, removing any need to double back on himself or run all around the town looking for people. He had split it well, and so the first journey didn't take long at all. After about half an hour, he was back at the shop to collect his second load.

These deliveries took roughly the same length of time, but the last one proved to be rather challenging. A customer, a rather rude woman that could only be described as a bitch, refused to accept her cakes because they had been delivered by a 'monster'. She was more concerned about the fact Odin had delivered them than the fact that there was a soul sucking Lich in front of her. Odin quickly made her understand her folly, turned out that surrounding a woman in twenty mangled skeletons was enough to scare the crap out of her. As he returned to the shop, Olly still didn't look up to meet his eyes, instead telling poor Augustus to pay Odin and send him on his way. Smiling at the fear he invoked in people, Odin simply left with his payment, ready to go select another quest to do.

562

-Exit-